


the moon was once a dream

by potstickermaster



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Just some headcanons, Unrequited Love, does this count as angst?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-28
Updated: 2019-03-28
Packaged: 2019-12-25 17:49:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18266363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/potstickermaster/pseuds/potstickermaster
Summary: “Alex—” She stops herself. “Lex,” she corrects, “called me his Red Daughter.” A pause. “The men called me Snowbird.”“Snowbird,” Lena echoes. She puts her hands on the Kryptonian’s shoulders, smiles again and the blonde forgets to breathe. She shouldn’t be forgetting how to breathe. “Eira. Can I call you Eira?”





	the moon was once a dream

She thinks it a mercy when her life was spared.

Lena approaches her gingerly; she isn’t terrified, and when she smiles the Kryptonian realizes that Lena is being _careful_ so as not to terrify _her,_ and she wants to laugh but the woman takes her breath away like that first time in that elevator and what else can she do but stare?

 _“Did they give you a name? ”_ Lena asks, fluent in Russian that the Kryptonian blinks in surprise.

Then, confusion. “ _Alex—_ ” She stops herself. _“Lex,”_ she corrects, _“called me his Red Daughter.”_ A pause. _“The men called me Snowbird.”_

 _“Snowbird,”_ Lena echoes. She puts her hands on the Kryptonian’s shoulders, smiles again and the blonde forgets to breathe. She shouldn’t be forgetting how to breathe. “Eira. _Can I call you_ Eira? _”_

“Eira?” The Kryptonian parrots.

“Yes,” Lena says, that kind smile never wavering. _Lex_ didn’t smile at her much. The soldiers never cared to. “It means ‘snow’ in Welsh.”

The blonde blinks, then nods slowly. She tests the name on her tongue. _Eira._ Her name now.

“My name is Eira?” She says, voice thick with her accent. “I… I think I’d like that.”

“It’s lovely to meet you again, Eira,” Lena smiles. “My name is Lena Luthor.”  

Eira smiles, mirrors the warmth in Lena’s own. “Hello, Lena.”

Lena pulls back her hands from her shoulders, and before Eira could feel bad about it—an ache in her chest and some bitter taste in the back of her throat that she doesn’t have the name for, not in English or in Russian, a bad feeling she first felt when Lena had to leave because Eve interfered their meeting—Lena reaches out for her hand. The warmth Eira feels doubles, blooming from where Lena touched her to every part of her body.

“Let’s go home.”  

/

Lena gives Eira a place to stay while they figure things out. It’s one of her apartments in the city, Lena says, and Eira only nods and looks around the place. It’s so, so much bigger than the room they gave her in Kasnia. When Lena walked her to another room with a bigger bed than the one she remembers from Kara Danvers’ apartment, Eira almost jumps onto it.

“This is your room,” Lena says, that kind smile never wavering. “Until we figure things out.”

“Where will you sleep?” Eira asks as she sits on the soft, soft mattress. Like a cloud. She smiles at the softness before looking up at Lena. She looks surprised.

“I… Have my own apartment,” Lena says softly. “Just a few blocks from here.”

Eira blinks, confused, before nodding slowly. “I will be alone?”

Lena opens her mouth to speak, closes it again, and Eira thinks of a fish. Then, Lena smiles again. “I suppose I can join you tonight.”

She walks out of the bedroom a little while later, and when Eira peeks out the door to see where she went, she finds her in the kitchen, speaking to someone on the phone.

“—not going to hurt me, Kara,” Lena whispers, and Eira bites her lip because it’s true! She is not going to hurt Lena. “It’s going to be fine. She trusts me, and besides. She’s kind of like you. Stop saying sorry about the whole- It’s _fine,_ Kara. I understand. We already talked about this, you crazy alien. I have to go.”

Eira quickly returns to the bed and pretends she wasn’t listening to Lena’s conversation. Lena does join her on the bed, and Eira isn’t entirely sure what to do with herself but Lena does; she pulls Eira’s arms around her like she had done it before and whispers _good night, Kara,_ and Eira doesn’t quite know how it could feel like she is at the most comfortable place in the world and at the same time, feel like she is at the worst. 

_Eira._ Good night, _Eira._ That was what Lena said, wasn’t it?

/

She doesn’t know much of what was happening. After Lex was caught, she was taken in with green, painful handcuffs into a place of metal and glass, until Supergirl—Kara Danvers—and Lena came and yelled at people to remove her restraints because there was no need for it. Supergirl, Kara Danvers, is careful around her; understandably, as they have fought each other almost to the death, only stopped by the friends Eira did not have. Supergirl had Alex, Lena, the Coluan, the Naltorian, the Martian, and the man in the tin suit.

Eira had no one else but Lex and his greed. That had been his downfall, eventually, and though Eira feels more lost now than ever before, she was alive. Purposeless and powerless, but alive. With a taste of near-death so fresh, she was glad of it.

What was it called? Gratitude? Gratefulness? That’s it. She was grateful to be alive.

They are at the fortress of metal and glass. The DEO, is what Alex called it. Eira sits comfortably on one of the chairs, dressed in clothes Kara let her borrow—some pants, a warm fluffy sweater, and shoes. A cup of warm cocoa is nestled in her hands. She takes a sip as Kara’s friends discuss their concerns about her. She could be made Kara’s long lost twin, the Martian J’onn suggested, while the Naltorian named Nia said something about what happened to Monday. Eira isn’t entirely sure what they mean. The man in the tin suit is nowhere to be found. Eira likes it better that way. He keeps making Lena uncomfortable. This way, Eira wouldn’t get into trouble for wanting to punch him in the face for annoying Lena.

Kara looks at Eira—her clone? her sister? _her?_ —helplessly, like she is worried. Eira keeps her attention on Lena, who is standing with her arms crossed, dressed in that thing they called suits. Red and soft-looking. Eira wants to touch. Eira wants to do a lot of things, like maybe go back to bed or eat more of the Chocos Lex gave her once—the only good thing he gave her, save for his gift of the suit. She wants to touch Lena, too, like when she took Eira’s hand. She liked how that felt. Warm. Like the hot cocoa in her hands, but better. So much better.

When Lena smiles, Eira does, too.

“I want to stay with Lena,” she says, causing everyone in the room to fall quiet and look at her with expressions she can’t describe. She keeps her eyes on Lena and smiles. “I want to sleep with her again.”

Everyone’s attention whips to Lena, who squirms a bit and turns red. Eira furrows her eyebrows.

“Are you okay?” She asks Lena, just as Kara sputters _sleep with her?_ Alex covers her face with her hands and groans while everyone else just tries to pretend they aren’t in the room.

“We- We cuddled,” Lena says with a shrug. Kara turns red, too, then looks at Eira like she is confused, or angry, or a mix of both. Eira just beams at Lena.

“Cuddled. Yes. I would like more cuddling.”

/

After the “meeting,” or so Eira thinks it’s called, Alex sends them away. Eira stands excitedly to go to Lena, but the woman smiles at her before walking to Kara and asking if they could talk.

Eira watches, confused at the weird feeling in her chest as they walk away together, the back of their hands touching. She remembers how Lena held hers.

/

She doesn’t see Lena much during the day anymore. She says she has to work, and everyone reminds Eira to stay indoors because _Kara_ does exist in the world, and no one can know that another exists. So much of Eira’s time is spent in Lena’s apartment, eating, reading, watching movies and television shows.

Lena drops by at night, always with food and more books, and sometimes, she sleeps over, but as the days wear on she stays shorter hours and sleeps over less. She explains with a soft sigh and an apologetic smile that it’s work, but she still holds Eira at night and  the blonde can’t find it in herself to feel bad anymore.

Alex visits too, here and then. She comes with Kara one time, and it was… _weird,_ Eira thinks is the word. Alex says it’s a bit weird, seeing two of her sister; and that was what Eira was to her, she says. A sister.

Eira beams, and Kara smiles, too. Eira wonders if that was what she looks like.

/

“I miss you, sometimes,” Eira tells Lena one day. They are eating Chinese food and watching a movie called Fight Club. Eira tries not to think about it. The first rule of Fight Club is not to talk about Fight Club.

Lena looks at her, like Eira said something that hurts, but she smiles after a while and sighs. “You are so much like Kara sometimes,” she says softly.

She doesn’t say anything else. Eira waits and waits, but the Narrator says _you met me at a very strange time in my life_ and she still hasn’t said anything.

Lena must have really liked the film. Eira kind of likes it, too, but she likes the warmth of Lena against her more, and likes it better when they talk about the movies they watch without work calling Lena to some emergency.

/

Eira has seen people kiss on the TV far too often than she could count. She wonders how it feels, but when she thinks of kissing someone, all she could really think of is Lena. The thought of it makes her blush and smile and giggle.

 _Then he kissed her. At his lips’ touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete,_ Fitzgerald wrote. Eira wonders if she would be a flower at Lena’s touch.

/

Fitzgerald, the books, the movies, the TV shows, they all lied. 

/

Lena doesn’t come visit as often anymore. It makes Eira feel bad; or something else, she can’t put a name to it. Alex takes her place, dropping by every other night with movies and food.

“There is pain,” Eira says softly. “Here.” She points to her chest and frowns, eyes red and watery with unshed tears. “I don’t… I don’t know how to make it stop. I don’t know what it is. The books… They tell me it’s heartache. How do I cure it?”

Alex smiles sadly, knowingly, with eyes that look like she feels this same pain. “With time.”

/

When Eira comes to the DEO for her scheduled check-up, she finds Supergirl—Kara Danvers—talking and laughing with Lena. The pain in Eira’s chest returns, worse now, like she can’t breathe and not in the way Lena once made her breathless.

Lena says hi, at least, and apologizes for being too busy, and Eira could only smile and tell her it’s okay even when it wasn’t. It was weird, how easy it was to lie.

It happens often. It becomes easier each time.

/

Kara visits with Alex one time. It was weird. Still weird. They let the Disney songs fill in the silence and pretend they were busy eating and the Danvers leave two hours sooner than they used to.

Before they could, Eira pulls Alex aside.

“I don’t want Kara visiting anymore,” Eira says.

Alex smiles sadly, knowingly, with eyes that look like she feels this same pain. “She’s just trying.”

“I know,” Eira sighs. She feels… Angry. Somehow. Confused. She wants to—

She doesn’t know. “But she reminds me of everything I’m not and everything I can’t have.”

/

She never sees Kara again. Not even at the DEO. Or at least, Kara makes an effort not to be seen. Eira knows, though, because sometimes she sees the remnants of a smile on Lena’s face or laughter in green eyes. One time, she finds Lena in the DEO pantry, arms around nothingness.

Eira wonders if Kara knows that she holds in her arms the world, the universe, _all that Eira knows,_ when she hugs Lena. She wants to think so, she hopes so, because if not, Kara isn’t worthy of her.

Perhaps, she knows.

Sometimes, it’s enough.

Sometimes, she hates it. Eira feels rage, somewhat, or something terrible and burning in her chest like when Lex whispered in her ear. She wishes for a cut, a bruise, _something_ that she can see _somewhere_ on her borrowed body so she can pinpoint where it hurts, so she can see where Lena had built a home that ached, except there is nothing; nothing for her to point at and say, _this needs to be cleaned_ like Alex had taught her to, only the hollowness in her chest and the ache that leaves only when Lena smiles at her.

Lena doesn’t smile at her as often anymore.

She misses the days when Lena didn’t know. She recalls the first time over and over in her head, where at least the memories are _hers:_ the smile on Lena’s face when she saw _her,_ like Eira held all hope and all she knew, though now she knows the reason—because hers is a borrowed face and a borrowed body but a heart and mind wholly _hers,_ and it’s not Lena’s fault her own are occupied by the one who came first.

And yet Eira cannot fault Kara either. She is her sister, they said; her flesh and blood and in a way, her heart. Isn’t she the reason Eira sought after Lena, because she was the only way forward? A call in her empty slate of a mind that called for Alex—and when she found him, though wrong, she searched for _her,_ Lena, like her true North.

It’s not her fault Eira forged her way on, curious and hungry, until she was home. Except someone already lived in her. 

Eira thinks it a mercy when her life was spared. She wishes, most days, her heart was, too.

/

“I have these friends from another Earth,” Kara says one late night, on the balcony of the apartment Eira stayed in. She wasn’t welcome, but Eira can’t really find the strength to send her away. The night is cold and her fingers are freezing but it reminds Eira of the easier days, back in Kasnia. When she only knew of Alex.  _Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind,_ Alexander Pope wrote. She misses those days. “There aren’t aliens there, though. So I don’t exist there. But Lena does.”

Eira looks at her but doesn’t say anything. Kara only smiles at her.

“I saw her there, once. I told my friend Sara that if there was a Kara there, on that Earth, that she would love that Lena, too. Selflessly, unconditionally. I told her that there is no instance of reality in which there was a Kara who would not be in love with Lena.”

She sighs, heavy like the responsibility of the crest she wears. “I told Lena that. My- The Lena on this Earth. You know what she told me?”

“To scamper?” Eira says tiredly.

Kara chuckles and smiles. “She told me there is no instance of reality in which there is a Lena who would not be selflessly, unconditionally in love with Kara.”

Eira holds her breath.

“So,” Kara says, offering her hand. “What do you say?”

**Author's Note:**

> i dont know anymore it hurts take it away from me 
> 
> also let me know what ur headcanons are on twitter (@potstickerzzz)


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